Czech Republic

Romani evictees seek compensation from town, Czech Supreme Court to review case

9.11.2015 4:38 The case of the Romani residents of Vsetín who were removed from its territory and relocated to villages outside of the Zlín Region nine years ago will be addressed by the Czech Supreme Court. The Romani plaintiffs believe the town violated their fundamental human rights by removing them.  full story

Commentary: Czech conference of Islamophobes moved from the Senate to a hotel

9.11.2015 0:11 This was the appropriate place: The Hotel Svornost in Dolní Počernice. The sponsors were also appropriate, with costs being covered by the clubs of senators from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the North Bohemians (Severočechy) and the "Citizens' Rights Party" (Strana práv občanů - SPO).  full story

Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry plans financing of social housing as discussion of new law proceeds

8.11.2015 1:22 The Czech Labor Ministry is counting on a big portion of the money now used for housing benefits being transferred in the future into the financing of the country's social housing system. The money should be transferred to municipalities.  full story

Czech sociologists: Economic crisis contributed to rising exclusion, but society is mainly to blame

8.11.2015 0:26 Why has there been growth recently in the number of excluded localities and the number of people living in them? Czech MP Ivan Gabal, who is also a sociologist, and his colleague from the GAC company, Karel Čada, have contributed their analysis of the issue to the Czech daily Hospodářské noviny.  full story

Czech study shows most non-Romani parents seek schools with few or no Romani pupils

7.11.2015 21:55 Children from socially excluded areas who do not receive adequate support during preschool age are more at risk of school failure than their non-excluded peers. That is the finding of a study focused on the inclusion of preschool-aged Romani children presented on 5 November by the Open Society Fund Prague.  full story

Commentary: The Czech Interior Minister's "Potemkin village" of a refugee facility

6.11.2015 20:44 Czech Interior Minister Chovanec invited European diplomats to visit the detention facility for refugees at Bělá-Jezová yesterday. Journalists from Aktuálně.cz report that in preparation for the visit he removed most of the detainees from the facility and installed completely new benches and a children's playground on the grounds.  full story

Czech Republic: European ambassadors tour criticized refugee detention facility

6.11.2015 18:45 Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) gave ambassadors from other European countries a tour of the detention facility for refugees at Bělá pod Bezdězem in the Mladá Boleslav area. The camp has been criticized because of the allegedly poor approach it takes towards the asylum-seekers detained there and was to be toured yesterday by Czech Labor and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksová (ČSSD), who has child welfare as part of her portfolio.  full story

Czech Government approves proposals for solving housing problems in excluded localities, critics not satisfied

6.11.2015 4:48 On 19 October the Czech Government approved a report on the state of socially excluded localities in the Ústecký Region submitted by Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier that includes proposals for how to solve the problems of ghettos in the Czech Republic in general. The report reviews the situation in municipalities with socially excluded localities that have collaborated with the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion and includes motions, recommendations and brief proposals for addressing the problem areas of education, employment, housing, indebtedness, social services and social work.  full story

Czech court acquits activist who used removable paint on sidewalk in front of Parliament

4.11.2015 23:18 Today the Prague 1 District Court acquitted two activists who used removable paint to outline the figure of a man and write the name "Tomáš" on the sidewalk in front of the Czech lower house in July. Judge Dana Šindelářová said no crime had been committed and there had been no intention to commit property damage.  full story

Marek Szilvási: Czech Government should stop gambling with the country's reputation - the fight for compensation for forced sterilization is not over

4.11.2015 19:15 I remember being with the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) just a couple of months when I was invited to Ostrava to an informal meeting with the Group of Women Harmed by Coercive Sterilization, an informal collective of harmed self-advocating Romani women. The meeting was organised by the local Life Together NGO in early April 2012 to celebrate the fact that after years of local activism, lawsuits and advocacy struggles, the Government’s Council for Human Rights had finally recommended the Government develop a compensation scheme for involuntarily sterilized women. A month earlier, the Group, Life Together and the ERRC had sent an official letter welcoming this government commitment. I took an early morning train and after a half-day journey from Budapest to Ostrava, I was warmly welcomed by the Life Together staff and the Romani women activists, whom until then I knew only through phone calls and email correspondence. After shedding my water-soaked coat I entered the second room and was introduced to Monika Šimúnková, the Czech Government’s Human Rights Commissioner, and Kateřina Valachová, now the current Minister of Education, who was at that time working for the Ombudsman. The atmosphere was relaxed, almost festive, and I soon succumbed to it and started expecting this controversy soon to be over.  full story

Karel Holomek: We should approach migrants through a sober examination of the facts

4.11.2015 0:09 The most recent opinion I have come across in the broad, endless debate about the refugees and what to do with them comes from Roman Joch (Lidové noviny, 15 October). In his opinion piece, he has presented the horrifying vision of author Jean Raspail's novel The Camp of the Saints, in which European civilization is destroyed by hordes of refugees who take what they do not have away from those who are incapable of holding onto what is theirs because of some sort of chimerical kindness and limitless tolerance.  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister: Debt relief is a basic aspect of addressing social exclusion

3.11.2015 22:54 Combating social exclusion involves not just creating accessible social housing and schools that don't discriminate, but debt relief. Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier opened up this very sensitive topic during the "Partie" discussion program on the Prima television station yesterday.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani local councilor to remain in custody on drugs charges

3.11.2015 19:04 Marcel Cichý, a local councilor in the Czech town of Trmice (Ústecký Region), has been charged with drug distribution and will remain in custody pending trial. The Ústecký Regional Court announced that decision today.  full story

Czech Republic: Proportion of Roma in children's homes increasing

3.11.2015 1:37 The proportion of Romani boys and girls in children's homes for children under three years of age has risen in recent years. While in 2010 one-fifth of the population of such nursery institutions was comprised of Romani children, at the end of last year one-third of the children in such institutions were Romani.  full story

Czech Republic: Ultra-right anti-immigrant protests blockaded by 98 opponents who are detained

2.11.2015 16:01 News server iDNES.cz reports that several hundred opponents of immigration who are also supporters of the right-wing extremist Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS) gathered in Olomouc on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the reception of refugees and in favor of the Czech Republic leaving the European Union. A group of approximately 100 people protested against that assembly and expressed their support for receiving refugees.  full story

Czech Gov't prepares instruction manual for municipalities on how to address the problems of ghettos

2.11.2015 1:45 Cities and municipalities will be receiving instructions from the Czech Government on how to proceed with solving problems in so-called socially excluded localities and what instruments to use. The instructions concern crime prevention, education, employment and social services.  full story

Czech Interior Ministry says ultra-right is being pushed out of the public space by Islamophobes using same rhetoric

2.11.2015 0:27 The topic of the so-called migration wave has created fertile ground for various extremists in the Czech Republic since the beginning of this year. Various populist and xenophobic entities have frequently pushed ultra-right entities out of the public space by exploiting this specific issue.
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Czech documentary film about xenophobia, "Czechs versus Czechs", wins special honor at Jihlava film festival

1.11.2015 20:46 Tomáš Kratochvíl's documentary film "Czechs versus Czechs" (Češi proti Čechům) has won special recognition at the documentary film festival in Jihlava "for the impressive use of film as a personal journal to break down social prejudices and stereotypes". The director made the film in the Romani ghetto of Předlice, where he lived for eight months.  full story

Czech Republic: Building owner demolishing controversial properties on Přednádraží Street in Ostrava

31.10.2015 16:47 The buildings on Přednádraží Street in Ostrava from which about 25 Romani families had to move away two years ago have been under new ownership since mid-October. After several unsuccessful auctions, the buildings were bought for almost CZK 600 000 (EUR 22 000) by the Ostrava Engineering and Repair Plant (Ostravské opravny a strojírny), which also owns a production facility nearby.  full story

Czech Republic: Hidden camera captures reactions to a refugee family from Syria

31.10.2015 15:17 The organizers of the Czech Government project "HateFree Culture" decided to test the approach taken by people in the Czech Republic toward refugees when they meet them face to face. The project sent a Syrian family with a young child to Kolín and to several neighboring villages in Central Bohemia.
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